Getting Stronger
by SirSquirtle
Summary: A rewrite of Strongest Guild What if just a few things happened differently- Klein taking up Kirito's offer that day in the Town of Beginnings, Asuna meeting a group of people she began to call friends and a player still traumatized by events that happened years ago entering the game world of Sword Art Online accompanied by her best friend. Asuna x Kirito. AU


Chapter 1- World of Swords

When Kirito appeared once more in the world of Sword Art Online he felt a sense of freedom he had not felt since the Beta Test had ended. Smiling, he headed quickly down the street taking in the vibrant atmosphere of the Town of Beginnings.

"Hey!" A shout came as Kirito walked into an alley, turning he saw a red headed man wearing a gold and red headband.

"Name's Klein," He introduced himself, offering a lazy handshake, "I was just thinking would you teach me the basics?"

"Teach you?" Kirito asked, raising an eyebrow

"Well, yeah. From the way you were running I presumed you'd played the game in Beta or something."

"And you want me to teach you what exactly?" Kirito asked

"Just like the basics of combat." Klein said with a hopeful grin

"Sure, I haven't gotten anything better to do until the opening ceremony." Kirito shrugged and beckoned for Klein to follow him.

-0-

Sinon spotted her friend nearly immediately, her friend being the awkward looking one who stood around waiting for her.

"You ready?" Sinon asked her

"Yeah, sure." came the immediate response

"Right, well what do you want to do first, I saw a couple of guys go out to the fields around town to start EXP grinding. Do you want to do that?"

"I don't know, whatever you think would be fun." she shrugged helplessly

"Alright." Sinon nodded and led the way.

-0-

To Asuna her avatar felt strange as she walked down the street on legs that weren't her own or when she caught a look at herself in a reflective surface she would see a face that belonged to another. However, she thought with a rueful smile, it was better than hearing her mother complain about how her grades weren't up to her expectations or how lucky she was to be born who she was. Sighing, Asuna looked around the town of beginnings still marvelling how real it looked or how she could smell the ingredients that an NPC was hawking. When she went around another corner she saw a group of players sat on the floor just laughing together. When Asuna saw them she turned to leave but the single girl of the group gave Asuna a welcoming smile and beckoned her over.

-0-

Akihiko Kayaba looked at the face of Rinko Koujiro and the barrel of the gun she pointed at him.  
"Why?" She asked as the gun wavered in her hand

"To try to see if humanity is as lost a cause as I believe it to be." He said simply, sitting down on his chair as he plugged his NERV Gear into the socket

"So that gives you an excuse to do what you're planning? To trap those innocent people?" Rinko asked her eyes wide

"Of course not," Kayaba said neutrally, "Of course shooting me now would save many lives as without me alive a way would be found to disable the servers of SAO."

"Then why shouldn't I do it?" She asked pleadingly, shifting the gun to a two handed grip

"Rinko, you should do whatever you feel you need to do. Although, if you're not going to shoot me I would ask if you would avoid sending the police here."

"Aki." She begged weakly as the gun dropped from her hands.

"Stay as long as you need," Akihiko Kayaba said before he placed his NERV Gear on his head "Link Start!"

-0-

Kirito sat with Klein as they stared over the hills at the setting sun all the while dragon like creatures flew slowly overhead.

"You're getting pretty good." Kirito said, breaking the comfortable silence that had fallen over them.

"Cheers, Kirito. You're a pretty good teacher." Klein laughed

"You want to go kill some more boars?" Kirito asked

"I'd love to, but I've got a pizza coming at half past so I'd better log out for that." Klein said, getting to his feet  
"Smart." Kirito smiled

"Yeah. I'll be back on after and since my friends are still on a plane heading over to my house so, if you want to play again after I've eaten I would be all for that." Klein suggested  
"Yeah, sure. I should probably log off for food as well." Kirito said

"Cool, I'll meet you in the town square," Klein said, swiping his hand to open his menu, "Hey, Kirito, sorry for asking the obvious but where's the Logout button."

"In the menu." Kirito said with a roll of his eyes

"Thanks for that," Klein said, shaking his head, "But seriously, it's not there."

"Look, I'll show you." Kirito said, standing up and opening his menu, he scrolled to where the Logout button should be and saw nothing but an empty slot.

"See what I mean." Klein said grimly

"It's probably just a glitch." Kirito said with a weak smile

"So what do we do?" Klein asked

"Have you tried calling a GM?" Kirito asked

"Yeah, but they're not picking up." Klein said as he jabbed the Call GM button again

"This is really weird, a glitch this bad could ruin SAO, I can't imagine they would let it get through testing and shouldn't they just be able to shut down the servers to get us out?" Kirito asked with a frown, Klein was about to say something but he was cut off by a loud ominous peal of a bell

"What was that?" Klein asked

"No idea." Kirito replied, looking around warily, out of the corner of his eye he saw Klein become enveloped by blue light, he turned in shock at what he recognised as a forced teleport but before he could do anything else his own vision went blue and he could see no more.

-0-

Akihiko Kayaba overlooked the mass of gathered players, each of them looking up at him in awe as he floated in mid-air wearing an embroidered red cloak.

"Welcome to my world," Kayaba said, spreading his arms wide, "My name is Akihiko Kayaba and I am the sole controller of this world," He said loudly, silencing the few players still brazen enough to talk over him, "As I'm sure many of you will have already figured out, the Logout button on the main menu has disappeared." Kayaba opened his menu and scrolled to where the Logout button should have been before continuing his speech. "However, this is by no means a mistake. To put it bluntly this is not a mistake or an error but a feature of Sword Art Online. For from the moment you logged into this game world, you became incapable from logging off from this game and nobody in the real world will be able to help you either for if they remove the NERV Gear or try to disrupt its operation, a powerful burst of microwave radiation emitted from the NERV Gear will destroy your brain." Kayaba took a pause as he watched the mixed reactions of the crowd in front of him; some were panicking while others talked nervously. One couple tried to leave the area and walked face first into the barrier.

"Unfortunately," Kayaba said gravely, "It is certainly possible that friends or family of a player may choose to ignore the warnings that have been issued and attempt to forcibly remove the NERV Gear. Because of this two-hundred and thirteen players have died both in Aincrad and the real world," With a wave of his hand various news screens sprung up around the plaza each playing news stations, "As you can see, news of my warnings and the deaths of these players have begun to spread across Japan and the world as a whole. Therefore the danger of dying by your NERV Gear being removed is now minimal and so this leaves you free to focus on completing this game. Of course some of you may now be wondering why you would want to attempt to complete SAO or even play it at all. The answer to this question is simple, if you manage to work your way to the top of Castle Aincrad and defeat all one hundred bosses, you will be freed from the game. This of course comes with a negative for I have disabled all forms of resurrection in the world of Aincrad and so if you die in the game your brains will be fried by your NERV Gear. Also I've left all of you a present in your inventory.

-0-

Kirito frowned at Kayaba's final words and opened his menu seeing a new item with an exclamation mark next to it indicating it was an important item.

"Hand Mirror?" He frowned as he materialised the item, it dropped into his hand and looked for all the world like a normal, cheap mirror. However, when he looked into it, it wasn't the face of the RPG hero he had spent a rather long time choosing the facial features for, but instead the face of a scared teenager known as Kazuto Kirigaya.

"Kirito?" Klein asked, looking mostly like himself, but with ever so slight differences

"Yeah, and you're Klein."

"Yeah, what happened?"  
"The facial scan," Kirito recalled, "When you first used your NERV Gear you had to put it on and touch points of your body like your shoulders and your knees right?"  
"Yeah." Klein nodded and then swore loudly

"We need to go." Kirito said

"What?" Klein asked

"If what Kayaba said is true, the fields around the Town of Beginnings will be soon hunted to the point that the game can't generate mobs fast enough."  
"We can't just leave everyone." Klein said, gaping at him

"Klein, I've just met you, but I like you and you seem like a good guy. But think for a second, we need to move. If we stay here we'll get caught with the beginning rush and I intend to get this game cleared as fast as I can but I can't do it alone, so Klein come with me." Kirito said, offering Klein his hand.

"All right, Kirito." Klein said with a nod and began to run with Kirito towards the exit to the fields beyond.

A/N

And I'm back, I know I promised to get this up nearly two months ago, but with pre entrance school work and getting hooked on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and replaying the Bioshock games, this on top of the mountain of essays that have been dumped on me doesn't leave much time for writing. On another note, this is actually the fourth draft for this chapter, and while it's not my favourite or even the best it fits the best with where I intend to take this new incarnation of Strongest Guild even if it is incredibly short. So with that I'll leave you and I'll try to get another (hopefully longer) chapter out Sunday.

Note- This is unbeta'd as my Beta tester is buried in mountains of work and essays, god do some of those essays suck. So when he gets round to it I'll post the Beta'd chapter then. Now… Sleep calls to me.


End file.
